I’ve been nominated for a Sunshine Award by My Hope Jar. I really appreciate the nomination. I keep seeing the other blogs posting various awards, and I wasn’t sure if I would have the chance to get one. I’m really appreciative that I do have a chance to share the sunshine. Considering the dark place I was in a few months ago, I am amazed that I qualify for spreading a little joy. I am thrilled that I am able to give some hope to others through my posting. And I appreciate all the encouragement and community that I have received through these blogs.
How the Sunshine Award Works:
- Include the Sunshine Award icon in your post
- Link the blogger who nominated you
- Answer 10 questions about yourself
- Nominate 10 other bloggers to receive the award
- Link to your nominees and let them know you nominated them
My Hope Jar’s Questions and my Answers:
1. Why do you blog?
I actually have three blogs – two that are related to businesses I started and this one. First there was My Recipe Hampers – which was a business concept that I started and developed through the first six months of this year. I used the blog to try and spread the word about my business and what I did. I had some good things happen, but the concept just didn’t take off. I admit I have not been on the blog in a long time. Second was Pure Romance by Bianca J – this was a blog about my journey in becoming a Pure Romance consultant. I used this blog more to look at the process that I was going through as well as to use it as a bit of a marketing tool. This blog also has been neglected for a while.
I started this blog in June when I suspected I was pregnant with my third pregnancy in under a year. I had lost a pregnancy at 7 week late last year, and then had a possible chemical pregnancy in April. Each pregnancy got harder to deal with as I had always thought it would be the easiest thing to do. I lost that pregnancy in late July and so really began to use the blog to deal with my emotions. I had kept everything very much inside over the last few months and really only my husband – B, knew what was going on. I decided to be public about my loss and found that that was a good way to deal with it and for my family and friends to know what was going on. About 7 weeks ago I found out I was pregnant again – which was both scary and exciting at the same time. I am now using this blog to share my pregnancy – fears and all – with others. I have found this community to be the best thing I have ever experienced in helping me deal with all the very complicated feelings that come with being pregnant after 3 losses.
So that is why I blog!
2. What is your favourite movie?
I love movies. Moulin Rouge is still the first one that comes to mind as my favourite. I also love Chocolat. But I will pretty much watch anything as long as it’s not a horror or cheesy slapstick.
3. What is your favourite food?
My comfort food is Macaroni & Cheese – but not the packet kind. I make a delicious baked Mac & Cheese. I love most Italian food and B & I really enjoy Mexican cuisine too. I’m a self confessed foodie, so there is not much I haven’t tried. And we are always looking for new and interesting restaurants to explore, or recipes to try. With the pregnancy I am completely obsessed with fresh and dried fruit. I eat a dried fruit stick almost every day and can’t get enough of pineapple with is currently in season.
4. What is your favourite thing or memory about your spouse?
I knew B was the one on our first date! We had met online and for our first date we went to a very nice restaurant. I have never in my life giggled as much as I did with him that night. The fondest memory of that night is that we somehow got onto the topic of Naked Lawn Curling (we don’t remember either – but we laugh about it often now still). That joy and laughter has stuck with us the whole 5 years that we have been together. We laugh and giggle a lot. And best of all!! He loves Christmas as much as I do!
5. What do you do to relieve stress?
That’s a really interesting question – I really don’t know. I love to be near water – usually looking at the sea. I always find that very calming. I find as well that I need to be distracted in order to quiet my mind, and so I find watching fairly mindless tv quite relaxing too – discovery channel shows, documentaries, things I don’t need to concentrate on to follow. And chocolate always helps (especially now that I can’t have a big glass of red wine anymore). To relieve long term stress though there is nothing quite like a holiday in the South African bush to recharge your system. B & I have just got back from a week in the bush and the difference is wonderful.
6. Who or what inspires you?
The women in this community of bloggers inspire me. I am always amazed at the strength and caring that is shown. I have a friend, Jaune, who inspires me too. She has been through years of infertility and pregnancy loss and yet is still so incredibly excited to share my journey with me, and that is inspiring for me. I am inspired by women who surrounded me when I was younger, who have given me insights into what good parenting looks like, and I hope one day that I will be able to inspire others in the way that they inspired me. Lastly I am inspired by my mother, who at the age of 62 has started a new job, in a country far from home literally and figuratively, and continues to amaze me with what she is capable of.
7. What is your biggest fear?
My biggest fear used to be going blind. Now I fear that I will never be a mother. Pregnancy loss is a cruel mistress – even when things begin to go right, there is this fear that sits in the pit of your stomach for ever and ever.
8. What is your biggest dream?
My biggest dream is to have the big happy family that I have always wanted. For B & I to build our dream home in the Natal Midlands and live a self sufficient life that teaches our kids to be kind to the environment, to grow up knowing where their food comes from, to grow up with a connection to the earth and to have the freedom to be kids in the same sense that we did growing up.
9. What is your best piece of advice?
My favourite quote is from Reba McEntire:
I really feel that this quote is the best advice anyone can give. You need to be able to dream. You need to be able to stand up for yourself when it’s necessary, and also to be able to stand up for what you believe in. And lastly you need to be able to see the funny side of things.
Another quote I love is the song from Cars – Behind the Clouds. The words go: Behind the clouds, the sun is shining, even though you can’t quite make it out. You may not see, the silver lining, but there’s a big blue sky waiting right behind the clouds. That song got me through quite a few dark moments.
10. What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of the kids that I helped raise briefly when I was an au pair/nanny in the USA. Em & Will are 19 now and in college, I was their au pair when they were 5 and went back as their nanny when they were 10. It is lovely for me to see kids that have achieved so much and are growing into such wonderful people. Lee, Mimi & Sammy are the other kids I nannied and it is so good to watch them grow up and be the amazing kids they are too. I’m convinced that one day Sammy will be famous and I’ll be able to say that I changed her diapers LOL :). I may not have my own kids to raise quite yet, but I know that I have had an effect on other people’s kids and that they are better for having had me in their lives. I truly hope that a year from now I will be able to say that I am most proud of my own child!
My Nominees:
Each of my nominees have reason for why I have nominated them. I have learned something from their blog, I have found comfort in their words to me, I have shared something of their pain and anguish. I hope that through this award they will be able to write something that lifts their spirits just a little bit.
Whispers of a Barefoot Medical Student – this isn’t a blog from within the infertility and pregnancy loss arena, but I have found her blog truly inspiring and feel that this award would be good for her too.
My Questions for you:
- How long have you been blogging, and why did you start?
- What advice would you give your 13 year old self?
- Where is the best place you have travelled to and why was it so good?
- If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live and why?
- Are you a cat or dog person? Or something else or neither?
- What is the one book your think every person should read?
- What was your favourite subject at school – have you used it in your career/adult life?
- What is your favourite time of the year?
- What is your “Happy Song” and what is the memory that makes it that?
- What food do you love as an adult that you hated as a child? What changed?
I am so looking forward to reading your answers and to finding out a little more about each and every one of you.
